


Novaya Zemlya Effect

by voicedimplosives



Series: Atmospheric Optics for Beginners [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Awesome Jane Foster, BAMF Darcy Lewis, BAMF Jane Foster, Behind the Scenes, England (Country), F/M, Female Friendship, For Science!, Gen, Introspection, Light Angst, Norway (Country), Post-Thor (2011), Pre-Thor: The Dark World, Scandinavian Vacation, Supportive Female Friendship, The Avengers (2012) Compliant, Women Being Awesome, denial ain't just a river in egypt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 11:09:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11966136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voicedimplosives/pseuds/voicedimplosives
Summary: “If you really, really loved someone, Darcy, if they had changed your life and changed who you were as a person and you had promised them that you would return to them... would you do anything to keep that promise? Or would you wait to return for an emergency and then ghost them?”“I'm so sorry, Janey. I dunno. I've never loved anyone like that. Would you?”“I'd at least say hello.”“He's a pig. A super hot, world-saving pig.”





	1. In Which Feelings are Ignored

“Hey Darce, have you seen my echelle spectograph? I feel like we might need it for the...”

In the last five minutes of contemplation, Darcy had decided she did not care much for Norway. She had thought it would be romantic, had imagined herself as a Nanook of the North type, being pulled on a sled through deep ancient forests by a team of beautiful huskies. At the very least, she'd hoped to be able to pull her weight with Jane's research (an unrealistic expectation, she now realized). 

As she stood at the double-paned window of their temporary home, a completely abandoned student dormitory, she felt a vague sense of anxiety. She stared out at what she could see of University of Tromsø's barren, snow-covered campus. It was like there was an unscratchable itch at the back of her brain she'd slowly become aware of over the course of their hurried packing and the long Quinjet ride they'd taken to get here. 

All things being relative, she could honestly say that life had been good in New Mexico. The novelty of the desert and then the chaos of Thor's arrival had kept things exciting. Now? No Thor. And more importantly, no Erik. No chaos, no novelty, no sunlight... just snow. Three feet of it: slippery paths, soaking through her jeans in seconds, gray hulking icebergs piled high beside every street, and impossible to walk in with her misguided packing choice of Converse sneakers. From the comparative warmth of their merely frigid bedroom she could see it spread out before her like an unwelcoming moat in every direction, as far as the eye could see.

She called back, “Are you sure we brought the chili peckergraph with us, Jane? That's the one with the... red parts? And the lens? Maybe we left it at the Puente Antiguo lab?”

“...because I cannot even believe the sky up here. What time is it?” Jane hadn't heard her response, hadn't even paused to listen for one, and was in fact so excited she was still rambling on about the potential astrophysical data that could be collected with a sky as clear as the one they had tonight.

Darcy sighed, checked her watch. “Almost two PM. I can't believe how dark it is. The sun never even rose.”

“Norway, baybee!” was the cheery shout that came from behind a stack of suitcases where Jane was rummaging around for the instrument. It was followed by an even cheerier, “Eureka!”

“Found the shelly hectorgraph?”

“Yeah, it was in the bag with my underwear and six boxes of Pop-Tarts. Who packed all this stuff together?”

Jane's head poked out from behind the suitcase mountain, a look of good-humored accusation written across it, and Darcy's eyebrows danced mischievously as she performed her best villainous cackle in response. Jane stared at her blankly for a second, snorted, shook her head disbelievingly, and dived back behind the precariously stacked luggage.

“When we get to the observatory, I need you to start typing out the parameters for the wide-field spectrograph. Try to get as big a spectral range as possible but also as much clarity per capture as we can. I want to get spectra of the whole sky throughout the night, then later we can compare and contrast with deep-field data for inconsistencies. Got it? Darce? The spectrograph?

“Yeah yeah, flip the switch on the wheat-field specklegryph. I got it,” Darcy sighed, taking one last long look out at the wind-swept tundra below. She wasn't sure what she was looking for. Maybe hoping to see Erik's looming shape trudging up the main path towards their building. 

He would have understood what the hell Jane was talking about it, and if he were here he would have broken it down into bite-size ideas so Darcy could share in the excitement. But Erik was missing, and Thor was missing, and SHIELD had “pulled some strings” to send them to the literal ass-end of the earth, and weirdly there was not a single TV to be found in any of the lounges in this building. It was almost like the students here actually spent their time studying.

_And_ she needed to figure out which one of those hulking, ancient machines in the observatory was a wheat-field specklegryph.

*

 

Jane could not believe the readings they were getting. She wondered if the scientists who usually used this observatory would notice if she made a few tweaks on the wide-field spectrograph, though. A couple microns here and an arcsec there and she was pretty sure she'd be on her way to writing the textbook for the next century of astrophysics students. Even as her mind raced with possible modifications and ambitions, her eyes stayed glued to the screen, taking in the data flashing across it as each image slowly appeared, lingered for a minute, and faded. 

While she worked, she also considered the impending talk she knew she needed to have with Darcy. It had been a long time coming. Darcy had come to her as a political science major, had even managed to cram in enough summer courses after the insanity at Puente Antiguo that she'd graduated with honors and on time, with her classmates. Jane was proud of that, and of her. Darcy was thoughtful and funny and Darcy always knew where she'd left her pencil. Always. 

But she still didn't know the difference between a wormhole and a blackhole and Jane suspected she'd never care enough to learn. Jane needed to find a way to ask Darcy to remain her friend while pursuing her own career ambitions. It should have been be an easy conversation to have. Everything should have been easier than it seemed these days.

She knew that Darcy felt that without Erik as buffer, she would only be able to provide the snacks and the sass for their ramshackle operation. Jane knew she had a lot more potential than that, and she should let her go fulfill it, but... Darcy had insisted that Jane would not go to Tromsø alone. That meant something, that loyalty. Jane hadn't been given a lot of that in her life, and she needed to think carefully about how she could honor it while pointing Darcy in the right direction. It would have been be easier if Erik were here.

And where _was_ Erik, anyway? She hadn't heard a word from him since the cryptic email he'd sent her about meeting with the director of SHIELD to research some “extraordinary artifact”, and that was weeks ago. She'd called three times today alone, and dozens more since he'd seemingly fallen off the face of the Earth. Jane shook her head, on the stray hope she could shake the worry from her brain and keep from lingering on the topic before she started to feel her nauseating fear return.

At least he had a phone, though. If her mind was skirting the problem of Erik, it had locked the question of Thor into a doorless vault and buried it deep, down below. She skimmed over thoughts of him like a rock skipping water, praying to saints Marie Curie and Hedy Lamarr for the strength to just focus. Focus. The work. What mattered was the science of it all. Maybe at the end of the work there would be Thor. But even if there wasn't, she would still have completed something. It could still be something great.

And it was stunning here, between the instruments at their disposal and her own homemade devices, she was able to correlate some truly exceptional, ground-breaking information about the universe and what lay beyond. This was going to blow stupid Tim Daily's pathetic theories out of the water. Normally she'd never rejoice in the humiliation of a colleague. But Dr. Daily had sneered down his nose at her work enough times at faculty parties that the thought of presenting just how wrong his ideas on dark matter and dark energy were to their entire community was almost enough to sooth the rising, raging hurt at the complete radio silence from all the men in her life she'd thought she could rely on.

Just focus on the work, Jane.

“Darce, have you seen my pencil? I have a couple of ideas on how we can amplify these readings tomorrow night...” 

Jane looked up from the screen, her eyes dancing with the images she'd been staring at for what could have been minutes or hours. The room's contents seemed to stare back at her serenely. A few instruments beeped cheerfully in the far corner. Nothing moved and nothing spoke.

“Darcy?” Jane said quietly, sounding so much like a plaintive and lonely little girl to her own ears that she abruptly stood up and paced the room, checking under tables and behind machines for a napping intern.

Jane pulled open the door of the lab more frantically than she had meant to and leaned out into the corridor, peering in both directions before bellowing, “DARCY!?”

Faintly, from what sounded like she was several turns away in the serpentine building, she heard a grumpy, “Gimme a minute, I'm almost finished! You want cheese on yours?”

She blinked twice, let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding in a relieved exhale, and went back to the spectrograph. She'd talk to Darcy. Soon. After they'd finished collating these results. Just focus on the work, Jane. Focus.

*

At nine thirty in the morning, Darcy wheeled her chair back from the desk where she'd been staring at nothing for the last ten minutes, climbed the ladder to the second-floor balcony inside the observatory and opened one of the small porthole windows in the dome-shaped roof so she could stick her face out into the frozen Norwegian morning. The sky remained dark as ever. She closed her eyes against the bite of the icy wind. It whipped her long curls out of their tie and into the air behind her. Her limbs had a dull ache that came from prolonged inactivity combined with lack of sleep and mental exertion. Her head felt stuffed full of cotton. They would need another pot of coffee soon.

In the east, between the mountains and beyond the low-rise housing units strewn between here and the horizon, it looked like the sun was rising. Brilliant orange rectangles danced in and out of a vaguely hour-glass shape and for a moment she was frozen where she stood. It was like watching the spirit of the valley rise up from its snowy grave and dance. She was mesmerized. 

Also relieved. With the sun risen, Darcy knew that Jane would accept it was time to go back to the dorm. They could sleep for a bit, then coordinate their data while they ate a late brunch. She tucked her head back inside to call, “Hey, Jane! Time to neither rise nor shine but in fact do the total opposite of both those things!”

Jane's head flew up from where it had been laying on her arms, used as a pillow while her torso laid out across the desk in front of her. “I'm not sleeping!”

“Uh, right. I know, the drooling on the sporklegraph is necessary for optimal results,” Darcy smirked, then turned her head to the window again before asking, “Hey, what's the time?”

The scientist rubbed her eyes and stifled a yawn as she pushed her chair along the desk to check the computer's clock.

“Almost ten. And I wasn't drooling because I wasn't sleeping. I closed my eyes so I could focus on my calculations.”

“Right, and the snoring was for... strategic microbe calibration?” Darcy teased, then continued, “What time is the sun supposed to rise this morning?”

“Uhhh....” Jane moved the mouse and typed in a few words, eyes scanning the screen in front of her. “Ten fourteen. Why d'you ask? And it's micron, not microbe. Different kind of science. Not what we're doing here.” She yawned again, this time unable to stop herself.

Darcy peered at the brilliant wavering shapes sitting on the horizon. She squinted, tilted her head, rubbed her eyes. She turned inwards again, looking down to answer but Jane had already moved on, rubbing her hands in anticipation at the fount of celestial information in front of her.

“No reason,” Darcy muttered quietly to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what an echelle spectrograph/wide-field spectrograph is or how they work, in fact I just googled “astrophysics instrument” and then tried to make it sound sciencey. I've never been in an observatory and if you were to pluck me from my life and place me in one tomorrow I would just stand there, staring at you stupidly and wondering why it didn't have more porthole windows.


	2. In Which Feelings Are Acknowledged

Darcy had found a TV.

It was stored in the basement of their dormitory, in a moldering cardboard box behind a floor-to-ceiling set of shelves that held nothing but jars of pickled herring. Darcy wrinkled her nose when she opened the door and found the light switch, and had almost lost last night's dinner after managing to pry the lid off one of the jars. She set it aside in favor of searching the rest of the closet, whispering, “Ugh Norway, you nasty,” to herself before letting out a shriek upon finding the ancient TV. 

She'd needed Jane's help to carry the thing back up the stairs and into the student lounge where they'd started a small trash can fire for warmth and festivity. She'd dared Jane to eat one of the herring while she inspected the TV and then descended to the basement again hoping to find a cable box. She returned to the lounge after settling for a slightly bent set of antennae to find Jane munching happily on a herring with another speared on a tiny fork in her left hand, humming to herself as she typed one-handed on the tablet in her lap.

“Ew, dude!” 

But Jane just looked up at her with a shit-eating grin and Darcy shuddered at the fish tail stuck purposefully between her front teeth. Darcy dropped the antennae on the couch so she could fully embody her arms-crossed, eyebrow-raised, **Judging You** pose. Jane grinned deviously and dipped the tiny fork she'd seemingly procured from thin air into the jar, pulling out another fish and biting off its tiny head with a zest Darcy hoped was mostly performance.

She pushed aside the Pop-Tart wrappers strewn across their small coffee table and heaved the massive device atop it, then plugged it in to the extension cord. They sank back into the sagging, stained couch as they warmed their slipper-clad feet by the small garbage fire while Darcy fiddled with the world's oldest remote control in hope of finding a channel that worked.

Jane cued up Bing Crosby crooning _I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas_ on her tablet and mouthed, “Who, me?” when Darcy, having leaned forward to adjust the antennae once more, turned her head to fix her boss with her most unamused glare. It went unnoticed. Jane was well into her second Norwegian beer (one of the few luxuries Darcy had thought to grab when she'd begged Agent Walters to make a quick stop on the drive from their landing spot to the university). The results from the observations they'd taken last night were spectacular. And Jane had just made the amazing discovery that she loved the taste of fermented oily fish. There would be no stopping her after this.

Suddenly, Darcy's fidgeting with the TV bore fruit as a snowy, wavering image popped up on the screen. “Eureka!” Darcy squealed, leaning back once more so she could properly see what they'd found.

Jane extended the jar to Darcy, who gagged at the smell that wafted up from it. The older woman giggled, feeling at peace for the first time in a while, and placed the jar on the floor beside the old couch. 

She leaned over and rested her head on Darcy's shoulder. “Merry belated Christmas, Darce,” she murmured. Darcy took the last pull of her beer, then rested her head atop her boss's. “You too, Janey,” she sighed. There were words that needed to be said, but the future could wait. So they sat watching some kind of Norwegian cautionary tale on the treachery of Santa Clause, basking in their success and relishing the momentary calm.

 

*

Two days later, Darcy's anxiety had hit a fever pitch. The day had dawned clear but clouded over around noon, and it had been snowing relentlessly for over an hour now. More snow. And clouds, which meant there would be no observing tonight. Darcy glanced at Jane. She sat with her neck bent forward, frowning at her tablet. Jane wouldn't say it, Darcy knew, because she didn't want to disturb their faux yuletide cheer, but she was pissed. The clouds and snow had not factored into her plans of revolutionizing the field of astrophysics in the next week. Darcy went back to watching the TV, flipping from dead channel to dead channel until suddenly, there was something besides static on the screen. She reached for her glasses and shoving them up onto her nose, she wordlessly turned up the volume. 

“Could we just keep it quiet, for a bit? I think I...” the words died in Jane's throat as she comprehended what she was looking at. The quality of the reception was terrible but there was no mistaking the Avengers, standing defensively in a circle and fighting off what looked to be an army of low-budget Ninja Turtle cosplayers.

“Whu....?” she started, her voice high and thin, and tried again, “Wh-what is th-is?” but her voice broke on 'this' and instead of answering, Darcy silently grabbed her hand. Thor was there in the thick of it, swinging a hammer and laughing with the blood-lust of a true Asgardian warrior. They bore silent witness to the madness they were watching; there was nothing to say. Jane felt like her sternum would burst open and all the anger and fear and insecurities she'd been compressing there would come pouring forth. Darcy felt numb and hollowed out.

An hour later, they were both reaching terminal exhaustion from watching when suddenly Darcy gasped as Iron Man disappeared into the clouds. Her right leg bounced rapidly as she muttered, “Come on, comeoncomeon, c'mon you're Iron Man god dammit,” finally bursting out, **“COME ON MAN!”** They both gasped when suddenly he appeared back in the air, falling rapidly back to Earth, and then when the program abruptly cut back to a neat-looking but visibly shaken Norwegian newscaster it was Jane who realized that they were still holding hands. She gently released Darcy's, who looked at her with sympathy that she could not accept, and left the room without a word.

 

*

**“Nnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggghahhhaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!”**

“Jane?”

“Aaaaaaaaaaahhhh motherfucker, you lying, avoidant, psycho-brother harboring, stupid beautiful asshole!”

“Jane I get it, but please come back inside. My coat is not equipped to handle this snow. Please.”

“Why didn't you pack what you needed, Darce? I thought that was the point. I though you were supposed t-to take care of this... of me. And Erik. Why aren't we worth being taken care of?”

“Wait wait, I didn't take care of you, because... I didn't bring a warm enough coat... _for me?_ ”

“I thought the work was important before him, Darcy. Science. Discovery. The stars. It was my life. And after he left there was always this thought, that if I was smart enough and I figured it out and I just fixed the damn universe... everything would be easy. I'd have respect and I'd have him and it would just... it would be easier than this.”

“We don't know what's going on, Jane. We don't know how he got here.”

“He got here because he wanted to get here.”

“Look, it's obviously an emergency. Maybe he did something really unforgivable to get here and save us all. Maybe it's something he wouldn't have done unless he had no other choice.”

“...”

“Jane, I know I don't really understand what's going on here. I don't totally get what you do or how you do it, I don't know what the fuck are those things were trying to kill the Avengers, I don't know what Thor's deal is, I don't understand how Black Widow is not chafed to hell and back while fighting in that uniform or how the Hulk still has pants on after hulking out? There's like, there's a lot I'm not really up to, to be honest. But what I can promise you is that if we go back inside right now I will _not_ get frostbite and if we don't, I definitely will.”

“If you really, really loved someone, Darcy, if they had changed your life and changed who you were as a person and you had promised them that you would return to them... would you do anything to keep that promise? Or would you wait for an emergency to return and then ghost them?”

“I'm so sorry, Janey. I dunno. I've never loved anyone like that. Would you?”

“I'd at least say hello.”

“He's a pig. A super hot, world-saving pig.”

“... Yeah. I think I'm ready to get back to work now.”

“Going inside?”

“Yeah, yes. Okay. Let's go home.”

 

*

Mission Report 1006A17  
Agent: Noelle Walters  
Date: December 29, 2012  
Time: 20:02 GMT  
Location: London, England (51.534190, -0.118766)

Assets Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis successfully detained at University of Tromsø (69.681025, 18.971265) for duration of Battle of Manhattan. 

Operatives enacted before arrival (12/25/2012):  
Evacuation of campus to eliminate potential risks: **successful**.  
Removal of all modern communication devices from living and working quarters: **successful**. 

Operation under Command 22A _[Non-Direct Observation]_ (12/26/12-12/29/12).  
Jamming of internet access to all websites covering current events: **successful**.  
Jamming of telecommunications access: **successful**.  
Notes: assets unharmed, majority of time spent at university observatory. Nocturnal sleeping habits?

Received Command 61B _[Retrieve and Extract]_ from Deputy Director Hill on 12/29/12 at 06:35 CET.  
Direct contact made with assets at 07:15 CET. Assets indicated desired destination as London, England.  
Approval from Deputy Director Hill obtained at 07:45 CET.  
Flight path charted and departure on 12/29/12 at 10:35 CET from Quinjet landing/storage location in Høna Tripper i Berget Valley (69.711133, 19.007725).

Flight time: 06:04 hours/minutes.

Direct observation notes during flight: _assets appeared agitated and tired but remained quiet majority of flight time. Brief discussions about where to stay in England, Foster's mother, future storage of astrophysical equipment on board, and inlagd sill (pickled herring). No discussion of Avenger Initiative or Battle of Manhattan._

Landing made in Bedfordshire, England (52.172290, -0.480289) at 15:39 GMT on 12/29/12. Quinjet secured with SHIELD associates at Bedford and County Golf Club.  
Assets escorted on-board Thameslink Train EM2251 departing at 16:00 GMT from Bedford County Station to King's Cross Station, London. Arrival time to station: 18:35 GMT.  
Contact established by telephone with Abigail Foster at 16:22. _[Background Check Reference 1117G indicates Foster's mother is clean, no connections known by SHIELD at this time cause concern.]_  
Arrival at residence of Abigail Foster at 18:55 GMT.

Current whereabouts of Assets Foster and Lewis: Residence of Abigail Foster. King's Quarters Apartments Unit 4B, 170 Copenhagen St, London N1 0GL, UK (51.536907, -0.119563).  
Operating under Command 22A _[Non-Direct Observation]_ until further notice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has anyone seen this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sint  
> I know it's not Norwegian but I doubt Darcy would know the difference.
> 
>  
> 
> Thoughts? Complaints? Comments? I'd love to hear any of them. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. This is the first piece of fanfiction I've ever written. I hope at least one person reads and/or enjoys it. :)
> 
> "The Novaya Zemlya effect will give the impression that the sun is rising earlier than it actually should (astronomically speaking), and depending on the meteorological situation, the effect will present the sun as a line or a square (which is sometimes referred to as the "rectangular sun"), made up of flattened hourglass shapes.
> 
> The first person to record the phenomenon was Gerrit de Veer, a member of Willem Barentsz's ill-fated third expedition into the north polar region in 1596–1597. Trapped by the ice, the party was forced to stay for the winter in a makeshift lodge on the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya and endure the polar night. On January 24, 1597, De Veer and another crew member claimed to have seen the Sun appear above the horizon, two full weeks prior to its calculated return." (Wikipedia)


End file.
